[MargaretR]

If you are starving, you will eat anything.

Early in his career my son spent several weeks in China and was amazed at the strange things they ate.

He rationalised it by adding that the population is enormous and food resources are limited - hence they eat anything that provides nourishment.

He related an incident in a university canteen where the two men on the adjacent table were served with dishes with lids. They lifted the lids and rapidly put the contents in their mouths because whatever it was they were eating was still alive and wriggling.
They then crunched, and spit out what looked like the legs of something.